The Blame Game
by karolinalo
Summary: In the aftermath of the Nogitsune, Stiles isn't doing too well; dreaming of your own death every time you fall asleep can't be classified as doing well, can it? As things spiral out of control and a dark secret is uncovered, Stiles needs to be saved. But how can you save someone who doesn't want to be saved?
1. Chapter 1

Author's note: The story takes place after season 3B, slightly AU and all that. English isn't my first language, so I apologize for any spelling/grammar errors.

* * *

_The Blame Game_

_I_

* * *

He's falling from a cliff. There are rocks far below him, and he's falling headfirst, and any idiot could tell that he's not going to make it. It's that obvious, because he's been falling for far too long. He wouldn't even survive if there had been water down below instead of hard, sharp rocks. But maybe this is for the better, he thinks, knowing that everything is about to end. The rocks are closing in dangerously fast, and for some reason, he can't shut his eyes. His brown eyes are wide-open, staring at the sharp rocks, only seconds away. Hopefully, it won't hurt. Hopefully, he won't feel any pain at all.

Then he wakes up.

Stiles sits up in bed and trashes violently and gets caught in his bed covers, staring frantically around him. He's back in his own bedroom, and everything is just as he left it. His clothes are in a heap on the floor and his desk is covered in papers and books, and his room is in a serious need of some cleaning.

It takes awhile for Stiles to calm down. His heart is racing, and he doubts he's going to get anymore sleep tonight. He groans, rubbing his eyes as hard as he can, as if that's going to make him fall asleep again. Stiles turns around on his side and stares at the alarm clock. The blaring, red numbers tells him that it's not even one in the morning; he's gotten one and a half hours of sleep. That's better than yesterday, he tells himself, but it's not going to be enough. Lacrosse tryouts are tomorrow, and he's been on the team since freshman year. He can't screw up.

With a deep sigh, he closes his eyes. Last night, he didn't get any sleep after waking up. Tonight, he won't either. So he stays awake. An owl is howling somewhere in the distance, and every now and then, the occasional car drives by outside. If he listens close enough, he can hear the stray cat softly walking across their porch, its paws lightly tapping the floor. The cat was here yesterday as well, and is probably going to be sleeping on the hood of his jeep when he leaves for school in the morning, exactly as it did yesterday, staring at him with its gray eyes.

Stiles lay awake; his eyes are now wide open, staring into the ceiling, while his mind races. The only thing he can hope for is finding an ounce of sleep between now and the sun's earliest rays, but it will not come.

* * *

"You okay?" Scott has been eyeing him all day, all through class and especially during lunch, when Stiles appetite had somehow mysteriously disappeared. He'd spent lunch picking apart his sandwich into small pieces that never found their way into his mouth.

"Stop asking me that," Stiles says as he slams the gym locker shut. "I told you, I'm fine." He's just a bit sleep deprived, that's all, although he should be used to it by now, having suffered through those horrible nights after the ice sacrifice. And of course, all those nights that followed.

"But you smell…" Scott pauses. "Weird." He scrunches up his nose and grins at Stiles, who rolls his eyes and grabs his lacrosse stick.

"Thanks," he says as they start making their way out to the field.

"No, that's now what I mean… it's like something's off, you know?"

"Switched up my cologne. Might be that," Stiles says, giving his best friend a lopsided grin. However, Scott narrows his eyes into thin slits, as if that alone would make Stiles spill it, which is not going to happen. Scott's been worrying about him too much by now, and know Scott, he probably still is. Stiles isn't about to spill the beans. Not now, when the Nogitsune's finally gone and a sense of security has fallen upon them, making their town feel somewhat safe and even normal again. He's not about to ruin that by confiding in Scott about a few ridiculous nightmares. He's not five.

Scott opens his mouth to say something, but Stiles never get to find out what it is, as coach blows his whistle awfully close to Stiles's ear. The shrill noise is so loud Stiles is pretty sure he just lost hearing in his right ear.

"Listen up," Coach says, eyeing them all. "Every position's up for grabs, and by that, I mean _every _position." At this, he seems to narrow his eyes at Scott. Stiles can hear him taking a shaky, nervous breath and swallowing hard. Stiles would probably be equally as nervous as his best friend if it hadn't been for the fact that he was simply too tired to care.

They line up on the field, him ending up behind Scott, and he can tell Scott's pumped up. He's jumping up and down, to keep his muscles from getting too cold, and he's attentively watching their teammates' efforts to score. Some do, some don't, but none of them is a very good player, which isn't boding well for the team's future. Scott, despite that, is pumped up, intent on not losing his role as captain, and then it's finally his turn.

Stiles watch as Scott gracefully catches the ball and prepares to begin. He takes a deep breath, then lunges forward. He's fast, although that's not really a surprise, not with the wolf inside of him. He's fast enough for the goalie to look intimidated, and perhaps because of that, the ball is in the back of the net before the goalie even has time to react. Scott closes his fist and pump it up in the air. Coach makes a content, pleased nod, and then it's Stiles's turn. He's been paying attention to Scott, and therefore almost stumbles forward, just barely catching the ball. It feels as if the stick is going to slip out of his tight grip, but he manages to hold onto it long enough to get a shot off.

His shot doesn't even hit the net.

He watches as the ball misses the net by a two feet, and he feels the disappointment hammering in his chest as he turns around. Coach is, as expected, glaring at him.

"What the hell was that, Stilinski?" he yells, but Stiles simply shrug. He knew tryouts were going to be difficult, but he's ridiculously bad.

"Sorry, coach. My aim was a little off," he says, trying to grin, although he's sure it comes off as a grimace.

"A little off? A little? That was the worst shot I've seen all day!" Coach continues, but this time, Stiles ignores him. He walks past him to sit down on the bench next to Scott. Scott is frowning again, wearing that worried look that Stiles is so used to by now.

"What was that?" Scott asks, and Stiles does his best to muster up yet another grin.

"Stayed up all night playing a game," he lies. By now, everyone has completed a shot, and they line up again. Both of them rise from the bench.

"A game?"

"Yeah, an online game. Beat the crap out of a few twelve-years old and lost track of time," Stiles says, but he doesn't know if Scott believes him; maybe he can smell the lies on him. But Scott doesn't say anything, now focusing on the tryouts. He wants to be the captain after all, and Stiles is not going to stand in the way.

At the end of the tryout, when Stiles body feels so heavy and tired that he's surprised he can even run, coach hands out scrimmage vests to half of the team, and Scott grins at him, wearing the blue vest while Stiles do not.

"You're going down," he says playfully, and Stiles manage to grin back.

"We'll see about that," he says, even though he knows that the words coming out of Scott's mouth probably is nothing less than the truth.

They take their positions, and the game starts. Stiles prays that his teammates don't pass him the ball, but he's in no such luck. The ball ends up with him, and he tries to run. His footsteps are heavy, his breathing irregular, and his heart is racing. It's difficult to get any air down in his lungs, but he tries anyway, tries to shake off the dreadful feeling of not being able to breathe.

He sees Scott in front of him. Scott's want to be the captain, obviously, and letting Stiles pass him with ease would look awfully bad. So Stiles tries to run faster, tries to run past him, even though there's no way a human can beat a werewolf. No way.

And in that millisecond when Stiles is supposed to prepare for the inevitable hit, he slips. Panicking, he tries to find his ground again, even though he knows he's in the most vulnerable position he can possibly be in. Scott knows it too, Stiles can see that, but even with his scary wolf reflexes, he can't stop.

Scott plunges toward him, his entire body weight hitting Stiles like a freight train. The air gets knocked out of him, and then he finds himself on the ground in a tremendous amount of pain. He's lying on his side, his left arm twisted painfully under him, and even though he didn't hear it snap, he knows it's broken. He cries out in pain when his arm feels as if it's on fire, and the team gathers around him, Scott's worried eyes hovering above him.

"I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to, so sorry…" Scott is rambling. His voice sounds so far away and Scott's face suddenly becomes blurry. Maybe he'll get some sleep after all, Stiles thinks, and let a welcoming darkness overcome him. The joy of not having to be awake lets him, for a second, forget about the pain, and he closes his eyes.

* * *

In the end, Stiles probably wouldn't have made the team even if he hadn't broken his arm. In the end, Scott makes captain and Stiles wakes up in a hospital room in pain, off the team and with his arm in a white cast.


	2. Chapter 2

_The Blame Game_

_II_

* * *

He's walking along a dark, foggy road in the middle of the deep beech forest. However, this time around Stiles knows he's dreaming, that whatever is happening around him isn't real. He may have been fooled twice, but third's time is a charm, isn't that what they say?

Dealing with the Nogitstune taught him how to distinguish between dream and reality, and several times now has he stared down at his hands, taking in the bizarre look of six fingers on each hand. He's dreaming. This is a dream. But he can't wake up.

He doesn't know how long he has been walking, but even though his feet are getting tired, he can't seem to get anywhere. He seems stuck in that very spot, and he can't wake up. Twice, he has tried to get off the road, to travel amongst the trees instead of walking along the eerie road, but he quickly realized it was impossible. There's no way to get off the road. It's as if someone's holding him back, strong arms clamping down on his shoulders, sharp nails ripping holes in his skin. So he stays on the road.

It's cold. He's dressed in the clothes he wore when he went to bed, a ratty t-shirt and pants, but the coldness easily seeps through the thin fabric of the clothes. But since it's impossible to make himself wake up, he keeps walking, enduring the cold he knows isn't real.

He stops when he sees two large headlights in front of him. Stiles doesn't move, and instead watch the approaching headlights, and fear grips hold of him as he realizes that a large truck is coming his way. The truck is so large that it's taking up the entire road, and there's nowhere for him to go. When the truck starts honking its horn, Stiles turns around and run.

His heart is beating so fast in his chest that he's afraid it'll break out of his body, and he's running faster than he ever has in a lacrosse game. He's running for his life now, doesn't even think about his pained bare feet. Even though he's sure he's dreaming, he doesn't want to die. But the truck comes closer.

He's running as fast as he can, panicking and struggling to breathe. There's a sharp, throbbing pain in his side, so he buries his nails in the palm of his head, focusing on that pain so that he can keep running. Keep running from the truck.

Stiles can see his own thin shadow in the light of the headlights as the truck approaches. His shadow is running for its life, and he realizes his hands are shaking. He looks back again, but when he realizes the hood of the truck just inches away from his face, he screams. He screams as loud as he can, and then he doesn't see anything else but the hood.

* * *

He wakes up. His eyes are wide open, staring into a white ceiling that's not the ceiling of his bedroom. His heart is still beating rapidly in his chest, but he's not dead. He's alive.

Before he can move, a familiar, frowning face appears above him. It's Scott's mom. Quickly taking in the white walls and the uncomfortable, rough bed sheets, he realizes he's in the hospital.

"That's odd," Melissa says, almost as if talking to herself. "You weren't supposed to wake up yet." She glances at his journal while Stiles looks around the room. He sees Scott, slumped in a chair in the corner, fast asleep, and his dad is doing the same, an empty coffee cup resting on the table next to him. Stiles feels a twinge of guilt before staring down at his arm. It's in a cast from the elbow and down to his wrist, and even though he's most likely been given painkillers, it still hurts.

"How do you feel?" Melissa says, her eyes leaving his journal. She smiles at him, a familiar, comforting smiles, and Stiles sighs.

"Better than I thought, after, you know, snapping my arm in two."

"In three, actually," she says. "It's broken in two places."

Stiles rolls his eyes. "Peachy," he mutters, but before the two of them can say anything else, Scott stirs before his eyes snap open. When Stiles meet his eyes, the guilt just piles on. Scott looks bad, probably worse than Stiles himself. Scott's face is paler than usual, his eyes slightly red, and he just looks so awfully guilty.

"Stiles…" Scott says, rising from the chair. Stiles smiles.

"Don't worry about it, buddy," he says as the sheriff stirs in his chair, he too waking up.

"I'm really sorry, Stiles, I didn't mean to," Scott says, his voice laced with guilt. "I didn't mean to hurt you."

"I said it was fine. Really," Stiles says as his dad quickly rises from his chair as he realizes Stiles is awake. He looks worried, and Stiles doesn't know why he just can't get them to stop worrying so much about him. It's a broken arm. Give it a few weeks, then he'd be as good as new. It's not like… it's not like he had been hit by a truck or anything.

"But your arm is broken!" Scott says, seemingly getting more upset, but Stiles smiles. _Smile, you idiot_, he thinks. _Everything's fine._

"Oh come on Scott, we've been through worse. I'll be healed in a jiffy!" He tries to sound upbeat, and he must've sounded convincing, because Scott relaxes and smiles back, and then the sheriff joins them, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He too smiles, looking relieved, but Stiles can't help but to notice that it looks like his dad has aged five years since he last saw him. And he knows why.

He just wonders why he's always the one to be so worthless.

Stiles get discharged a couple of hours later, because really, there's no reason to keep him in the hospital. All they have to do is wait for his arm to heal, so he goes home, and the only thing that annoys him is that he can no longer drive his jeep. Scott has driven it back from the school parking lot and it's now parked outside their house. Stiles is staring at it now, annoyed that he won't be able to drive for a couple for weeks. At least now the jeep can serve as a full-time bed for cats, because the stray cat seems to have taken a liking to it; it's once again sitting on the hood, cleaning its fur.

With a sigh, he returns to bed. It's difficult to fall asleep. Part of it is because he's having trouble finding a comfortable sleeping position, with the broken arm and all. But a part of him is scared of falling asleep, knowing that everytime he closes his eyes and drift off, he'll dream about dying again, dreams that feel so real that he's surprised he doesn't wake up with scars or bruises.

Eventually, though, he drifts off to sleep.

And finds himself in the middle of an ocean. Like, literally in the middle of it. There's a full moon above him, and the waves are making him nauseous as he struggles to keep afloat, his clothes making it difficult. He keeps thinking that he shouldn't be in the water with his cast, but when he looks down at it, the cast isn't there and the pain is gone. Another sign he's dreaming.

Stiles yells for help. Yells at the top of his lungs. He doesn't know why, because he's too far away from the shore. He can't even see the stupid shore. The ocean is cold and dark. He's always been frightened of the ocean. Not of the water, not of drowning – something he's probably about to do – but of what's lurking underneath the surface. What's lurking in the deep depths of the ocean, so deep that they're unexplored by humans. That's what scares him.

And when something brushes against his ankle, he starts shaking, and it's not because he's cold. Stiles tries to convince himself that it's simply a fish, or maybe a squid, but when it once again brushes by his ankle, he feels the familiar, panicked sensation of not being able to breathe. He starts to swim, but just as what had happened in the previous dream, he doesn't seem to get anywhere. He seems to be stuck in the same place, and all his efforts do is to make him exhausted.

Then, something touches his ankle again. He yelps, a disgusted, frightened look on his face appearing on his face as he tries to swim faster. It's useless. Suddenly, something is pulling him down. Something has grabbed hold of his ankle, pulling him down as hard as it can. The salty water annoys his eyes as he open them, but he needs to see, needs to at least try to make sense of what's really pulling him down. He can't see much; it's too dark. However, the thing that's pulling him down stands out in the darkness, like a large, black mass. It's so large that Stiles stops struggling out of fear, and he's suddenly afraid that in this dream, he won't die of drowning, but of a heart attack.

His lungs are begging for oxygen. He opens his mouth and screams in panic, but no sound comes out as Stiles feels himself being dragged down to the very bottom of the ocean.

All of a sudden, Stiles wakes up. He's screaming. He can't stop. His heart is racing, and he knows he's panicking, but he can't stop. It's ridiculous, really, because he knows he's back in his own bedroom, knows he's safe, but he just can't seem to stop screaming.

His dad enters the room, his hair standing out in all possible directions and he's wearing that worried look that Stiles has been seeing so often lately. His dad rushes toward him, quickly embracing him in a hug.

"It's okay, Stiles, it's just a nightmare," his dad whispers in his ear. It takes him a while, but eventually, he manages to calm down. It's comforting having his dad's strong arms around him, holding him tight. A long, silent moment passes before his dad reluctantly lets go of him.

"It was just a bad dream, Stiles," he says, watching his sleep-deprived son with the eyes of a worried father.

"I know," Stiles says. "I know that."

There's a calm silence for a moment, their breathing the only sound that can be heard.

Then Stiles open his mouth, his words hesitant. "Dad?"

"Yeah?"

"Do we have any sleeping pills?" He's desperate now. The alarm clock tells him that it's a quarter past two in the morning, and he's desperate for some sleep.

"I think we do," his dad says, quickly disappearing out of the room before returning with two small pills in one of his hands and a glass of water in the other. Stiles closes his eyes in relief, letting go of the breath he hadn't realized he had been holding.

For the first time in days, Stiles manages to fall asleep after a bad dream, and for the first time, he sleeps without dreaming of of his own death.

When he wakes up the next morning, in a pill-induced haze, he's so relieved he wants to cry.

* * *

"I'm really sorry about your arm," Scott says. He's been repeating the same words the entire morning, and every time, Stiles rolls his eyes.

"I said, don't worry about it. It was an accident." He's in a good mood today, and the smile he's giving his best friend is sincere for once, something it hasn't been in days.

"But Stiles, I broke your arm," Scott looks ashamed of himself, but Stiles put his good arm around his shoulders.

"It's not that bad, Scott. Just think of all the perks I'll get. You'll have to carry all my stuff, everyone has to make food for me, and I can get out of doing homework! You know, crying about how much my arm hurts, shed a few fake tears, I think even Coach will let me off…" Stiles rambles, but a small smile appears on Scott's face.

"That's true," Scott says, almost as if trying to convince himself. Stiles grin, but as Scott turn to look at him, a frown appears on the wolf's face.

"Scott?" Stiles asks. "What's wrong?" Scott has a surprised, slightly confused look on his face as he's staring intently on Stiles's neck. For a second, Stiles ponders the thought that Scott has somehow become a hybrid between a wolf and a vampire, before the werewolf opens his mouth.

"Dude, have you been cuddling with a cat lately?" he asks, and now it's Stiles's turn to look confused.

"What are you talking about? No. You know dogs are my favorite," he says, trying to get a look at what Scott's looking at, which, of course, is quite impossible. He heads into the closest bathroom, which just so happens to be empty, and takes a look in the mirror.

At first, he ignores the look of himself, ignores that split second when he thinks he's staring at someone other than himself. He looks horrible, despite the hours of sleep he got tonight. His skin is pale, the dark circles painfully obvious, and he looks weak; he looks pathetic.

Then, his attention switches to the claw marks on his neck. They're bright red, and are, without a shadow of a doubt, from a cat. Three long scratch marks that hurts only when he touches them. Scott's standing next to him, wearing the same confused look on his face that Stiles does.

"Sleepwalking?" he asks. "Cuddling with a cat in your sleep? Weird, even for you."

"Yeah," Stiles mutter, even though he's sure he hasn't been sleepwalking. The only cat that has been close to him in months is the stray cat with gray eyes. But even that one hasn't been within ten feet of him, always hurrying away from him as he approaches, glaring at him as if he's the spawn of the Devil.

But the bright red marks on his neck, they are definitely the doing of a cat. It's freaking him out, and this is perhaps the only time Stiles has wished he'd owned a cat.


End file.
